article linkMany women experience declines in their memory during and after menopause, a change thought to be due, in part, to the rapid hormonal changes they weather during that time.
Now, research from the University of Michigan Health System suggests that hormone therapy might help women retain certain memory functions. In a study in the new issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, they report that a group of postmenopausal women showed more brain activity during a visual memory test than did women who were not taking the hormone therapy.
The 10 postmenopausal women in the study, ages 50-60, were given hormone therapy or a placebo for four weeks, followed by a month with no medications, and then four weeks of the other treatment. Their brain activation was measured as they were shown a complex grid of 81 squares, with 40 of them darkened to form a pattern.
Posted on: November 16, 2006, 08:55:32 AM
Estrogen and memory in a transsexual populationAuthor(s)
MILES C. (1) ; GREEN R. (2) ; SANDERS G. (3) ; HINES M. (1)
Abstract
The association between administered estrogen and performance on verbal memory and other cognitive tasks was examined. Male-to-female transsexuals undergoing estrogen treatment for sex reassignment (n = 29) scored higher on Paired Associate Learning (PAL) compared to a similar transsexual control group, awaiting estrogen treatment (n = 30) (P < 0.05). No differences between groups receiving and not receiving estrogen were detected on a control memory task (Digit Span) or on other cognitive tasks including Mental Rotations and Controlled Associations. There were no group differences in age. Group differences in mood or in general intellectual ability also did not explain the findings. Results suggest a specific influence of estrogen in men on verbal memory tasks, similar to that seen in prior studies of women. They are discussed in terms of differential processing demands of the two memory tasks and possible differences between estrogenic influences on Mental Rotations and Controlled Associations in men versus women.
Journal Title
Hormones and behavior (Horm. behav.) ISSN 0018-506X CODEN HOBEAO
Source
Estrogen effects on cognition across the lifespan
1998, vol. 34, no 2 (1 p.1/4), pp. 199-208
